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Pensions Bill

I support the amendment, to which my name is attached. As one would expect, my noble friend Lady Hollis has covered the amendment in substantial and correct detail. This is a probing amendment. It is not ideally worded. The difficulty that both my noble friend and I are working under is that the Minister does not appear to accept that this is an issue and that we should work jointly to find a way through it. We have not crossed that principal point at the moment. If we had, perhaps we could find a way to deal with this in a more equitable and better way than the amendment. At Second Reading, the Minister said that we know that about 400,000 individuals will be caught by the £5,000 ceiling gap. That is not a static 400,000. I could understand it more if there were a reducing number, but there is not—it will replenish itself as people move out of the marketplace. Pensions Bills do not come along very often, and this one is a very good attempt by the Government to eliminate some of the inequities that we have had over the years in pensions. That is to be applauded. But the Bill would not be doing its job if it just left 400,000 people without any pension protection. I will be interested to hear what the Minister says. I will listen in particular for an acknowledgement that this problem is difficult to work through and that the Government are prepared to discuss and work through it to a solution which, while it may not be ideal, is a step in the right direction. At the moment, 400,000 people have nothing to hope for while they work in one or more jobs that pay an income of less than £5,000 a year. I support this amendment.